The Awareness Center closed. We operated from April 30, 1999 - April 30, 2014. This site is being provided for educational & historical purposes.
We were the international Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse/Assault (JCASA); and were dedicated to ending sexual violence in Jewish communities globally. We did our best to operate as the make a wish foundation for Jewish survivors of sex crimes. In the past we offered a clearinghouse of information, resources, support and advocacy.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

December 28, 2008 -- Each year around this time The Awareness Center asks you -- individuals from Jewish Communities around the globe -- to evaluate whether or not we have made a difference in the lives of Jewish survivors of sexual violence, their family members and also family members of those who offend. If the answer is yes -- we ask that you remember us when making you year end donations.

Over the last eight years The Awareness Center volunteers have communicated with thousands of individuals who disclosed deep dark secrets they have been too afraid to share and yet somehow have finally found the courage to do so. We listened to each survivor, family member or friend of a survivor's horror stories -- and did our best to offer them hope, healing and concrete ways of helping each individual's particular needs.

The Awareness Center has been shining a light on the issues and ramifications faced by almost all survivors. We have been actively educating Jewish communities about sexual abuse and assault -- including the signs and symptoms of an abused child or that of an adult survivors and the long term ramifications sex crime have been playing on our communities. We did all we could to try to protect and prevent one more child from becoming the next victim of a sex crime -- and to offer a helping hand to those who have already been hurt. The goal has always been to offer hope and healing to a group of individuals who have been silenced for all to long.

One of our most popular venues we have for helping has been our web page. It's been a catalyst for finding hope and healing for those who have been too afraid to call directly to find help. Our web page also offers a way for those interested to come learn and participate in our online self-help and networking groups. For many survivors it's been a place in which they have learned for the first time that they're not alone, aren't the only ones, aren't at fault. If use indicated needs, then it might be helpful to share here that our site averages over 600,000 hits per month. Per MONTH. That is millions of hits a year, from those looking for help in Jewish communities internationally.

Interestingly, come Shabbat or Jewish Holidays the hits drop significantly, only to go up again after the Shabbat or holiday is over. This tells us that many of those utilizing our web page might be observant, "shomer shabbat." It tells us that there are many in the observant communities who need our support and are seeking in a way that feels safe to them and when they can.

If one looks at statistics from the general population, one of every four adults would have been sexually abused by the time they reached the age of eighteen. With upward of five millions Jews living in the US, even conservative odds imply that there are over one million Jewish survivors in our communities. Add to that the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics of close to five and half million Jews living in Israel, and we might well have over another million of Jewish survivors of sexual abuse in our homeland. With additional Jews scattered about the world, the probably numbers of survivors among us add up, with the total of Jewish survivors of sexual abuse and assault numbering in the millions.

We of The Awareness Center--The Jewish Coalition Against Sexual Abuse and Assault (J-CASA)--know that saving one soul of Israel is as if one saved a whole world. What if we were to help heal millions of wounded souls? We know you know it is important. Will you help us?

In addition to individual support, education via website materials and online networking groups/listserves, our volunteers have been working tirelessly on behalf of the many who need healing and support:

Over the last twelve months members of our organization provided testimony at legislative hearings across the United States in hopes of helping increase or abolish the statute of limitations and offering "windows" on filing civil suits against their offenders -- which in turn helps to publicly name those who be continuing to committing heinous criminal sexual acts against our children. This would also finally offer those who have been victimized their day in court.

During 2008, The Awareness Center added several educational events to the list of activities and outreach, including the showing of the film "Narrow Bridge" in both Washington DC and in Baltimore, MD; were represented at several conferences including an event at the JCC in Wilmington, DE and another in New York. We also held a press conference in Brooklyn to help shine a light and offer our support and some measure of protection to Rabbi Nochem Rosenberg--a brave whistle blower about abuse in his Satmar community of Williamsburg (Brooklyn, NY) --who was 'rewarded' for his courage to support the survivors and provide them with a hotline from his very home to call in to, by being threatened at knife-point and gunpoint, then actually shot at.

We had a busy year, and plans for the upcoming year are already forming. We hope to have monthly educational, self-help, and networking meetings in Baltimore, New York, and Chicago for those interested in meeting others with similar interests and experiences, and for those interested in learning more about how to help support survivors, protect our communities, and heal those among us who'd been harmed. Our goal is to help foster a dialog among community members and to help teach those who are willing to, to advocate for themselves and/or others. Our plans include opening branches of The Awareness Center in several locations in New York State (Monsey, Long Island; and Brooklyn, NY), as well as in Lakewood, NJ, Chicago, IL, and Los Angeles, CA.

There is much to be done, and we are willing to do it. However, we cannot do it or remain open without your help: we need additional volunteers and we need your financial support.

Our statistics speak for themselves: thousands of survivors supported, 600,000 hits per month, growing interest and willingness to explore this difficult topic. But we cannot do this without you.

Please help. Please remember us in your year end donations. Funds can be sent to us on line using a credit card by clicking on the donation button at the top of this page or by sending a check or money order to:

My sharing my story with the Awareness Center helped me learn how normal I am despite what I went through, and it was a relief to learn that so much of what has plagued me for so many years (decades, actually) has a name--PTSD, a typical consequence of traumatic experiences.

Learning that I could still take my abuser to task helped, even though I have since learned that my abuser is deceased. I can put my personal story in a new place. My abuse led to my becoming sterile from an infection that disturbed the development of my inner apparatus. But I was not left without blessings. Hashem saw to it that I became a mom to a lovely baby whose mother could not raise her. Now grown and married, my daughter is the promise of a future with grandchildren.

I have begun to work to help others by working with the center to prevent abusers who are still abusing children from continuing to cause trauma and life long difficulties to others.

Being an Orthodox woman, I know how terrible it is to discover that incest and pedophilia are as prevalent in the Jewish community as in any human community. Being Jewish means learning to restrain our human impulses, to overcome the animal drives that keep us from being complete reflections of the divine image in which we were created. To discover that rabbis and leaders in the Jewish community are abusing children because they refuse to restrain their most inappropriate impulses is a shock. To have to make our community aware of such people is ashanda, but it is necessary. How else do stop these people? Sending them to Israel or to Australia or to other schools is no answer. That is a crime. It makes us accessories to that abuse, not a just and righteous people.

I beg the sane and caring of our leadership to lend their support in keeping our community safe and healthy for our children so that no such filthy laundry needing cleaning should have to be laundered in public. I ask everyone in the community to lend their all to support the Awareness Center in making our community safer for our children.

On July 24, 2009, Tony Alamo was convicted 10 counts of interstate transportation of minors in connection with the human trafficking industry. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to 175 years in prison. He is currently incarcerated at a federal penitentiary in Tucson, AZ.

There are several people who go by the name of Bernie Hoffman and Tony Alamo. The individual on this page was born in Joplin, MO on September 20, 1934. As a child he moved with his family to Helena, MT. In the 1960s Bernie Hoffman legally changed his name to Tony Alamo and it was around that same time he converted to Christianity.

Federal agents and state police had raided Alamo's Arkansas compound on Saturday and removed six girls from the home. After police and social workers interviewed the girls this week, prosecutors sought Alamo's arrest. FBI spokesman Steve Frazier in Little Rock would not disclose what the children said.

Frazier said Alamo was staying at the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff, Ariz., when arrested. The evangelist — who began his career as a California street preacher in 1966 — was scheduled for a federal court appearance Friday in Flagstaff.

"He has to have an initial apperance before I can say a whole lot," Frazier said. He said he did not believe children were with Alamo at the time of the arrest.

Agents arrested Alamo on charges that he violated the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting children across state lines for illegal purposes. Frazier described the illegal purposes as "sexual activity."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, describes the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries as a cult, as do many of the church's former members. As a group, Alamo's church despises homosexuals, Roman Catholics and the government; Alamo has preached that girls are fit for marriage once they are sexually mature.

"Consent is puberty," he said in an interview with The Associated Press last week while agents raided his compound at Fouke.

The Little America Hotel, in Arizona's northern mountains near the Grand Canyon, bills itself as a luxury resort. Fred Reese, a spokesman for the hotel, declined to comment and referred all questions to the FBI.

An Arkansas judge has hearings set for Friday and Monday on whether the state Department of Human Services can maintain custody of the six girls taken from the compound during the state and federal raid. The girls will attend the hearings.

"We will transport them to and from hearings. We will take part in any future hearings," DHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said. "Our job right now is to basically take care of them."

Circuit Judge Jim Hudson said two hearings would be conducted Friday and the other four are set for Monday in Texarkana. The girls, ranging in age from 10 to 17, all have been identified through police investigation and birth certificates, state officials said.

Neither Hudson nor Munsell would disclose what the girls told investigators or state aid workers.

State and federal agents raided Alamo's Fouke compound Saturday night, searching for evidence that children there had been molested or filmed having sex.

The six hearings will be split among three circuit judges serving Miller County. Judges will decide whether the state had enough evidence to warrant temporarily removing the children from their homes. If a judge rules against the state, the girls would be returned to her parents.

Hudson said all hearings, testimony and documents will be sealed because the cases involve juveniles — though he said he would announce a summary of his actions without naming the children.

According to Frazier, FBI agents and local and state police in Arizona arrested Alamo as he was leaving the hotel, which is located along cross-country Interstate 40. When the AP interviewed him Saturday and Monday, Alamo called from telephone numbers registered in the Los Angeles area.

Frazier said it wasn't known where Alamo was headed when he was picked up.

Alamo and his late wife Susan were street preachers along Hollywood's Sunset Strip before forming a commune near Saugus, Calif. Susan Alamo died of cancer in 1982; Alamo claimed she would be resurrected and kept her body on display for six months while their followers prayed.

Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 after the IRS said he owed the government $7.9 million. He served four years in prison.

Prosecutors in the tax case argued before sentencing that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.

Since establishing his ministries in Arkansas, Alamo has been both a controversial and flamboyant figure in the state. Snapshots often show Alamo wearing large dark sunglasses, as he recently said he's become legally blind as he's aged.

In his autobiography, "My Life," former President Clinton described Alamo as ""Roy Orbison on speed."

Clinton recalled traveling to Alma in 1975 to see Dolly Parton sing at Alamo's compound, when Alamo's wife Susan was still alive. Remembering the fiasco after Susan Alamo's death, Clinton wrote: "A couple of years later, he (Alamo) got involved with a younger woman. Lo and behold, God spoke to him again and told him Susan wasn't coming back after all, so he took her out of the glass box and buried her."

FBI documents identified Alamo by his birth name, Bernie Lazar Hoffman, who turned 74 the day of the raid. Alamo has said he was born a Jew but converted to Christianity.

Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.

We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

In many offices, the hot topic of conversation is L'affaire
Lewinsky. Not at the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.

All day long we bump into each other at the water cooler,
but it's not to chat. We are too busy forcing down our eight glasses.

On any given day, someone in our office is on a diet.
(Most everyone that is, except for the men, who seem able to eat what they
want.) The method varies - some are doing Weight Watchers, others, the
no-carbohydrates plan, or the cabbage soup diet. I'm on a plan also, although
the nutritionist I see would correct me and say, "You're not on a diet, you're
just eating healthily." (He can say what he wants, but not having many fats
and swearing off my beloved chocolate sounds like a diet to me.)

At this place where I am learning how to "eat healthily,"
I often run into Jewish women I know from all walks of life. "What's going
on here?" I wondered. "Why are so many of us having to fight to shed pounds?
Do Jewish women struggle with weight issues more than other women?"

In the spring edition of Lilith Magazine, there was
an interesting article titled, "Why Jewish Girls Starve Themselves." The
thrust of the piece was about the high rate of eating disorders among Jewish
women, discussing how issues of food, body, sexuality and appetites are "used
and confused in attempts to deal with interpersonal relationships, or to
deal with pain" - including second- or third-generation Holocaust trauma.
I don't know much about this psycho-speak, but I was intrigued by the title
of the article.

The flip side of overeating is the obsession with being
thin. Too often lately you hear of young girls who decline dessert or birthday
cake, saying they are watching their weight. One 8-year-old girl was heard
complaining her thighs were too fat. When I was her age, I'm not sure I knew
where my thighs were.

We all have our excuses about how we ended up this
way: When we were young, our grandparents constantly urged food on us; we
had to clean our plates out of guilt for the "starving children in Africa;"
it's in our genes - Jews don't drink, we like to eat.

My excuse has always been having two pregnancies close
together and three operations in two years. I did try to fight the battle
of the bulge. I bought the "Stop Kvetching and Start Stretching" exercise
video. I bought the video starring Gilad, that handsome Israeli who leads
aerobics classes at exotic locales in Hawaii. I have a Richard Simmons tape.
But when my doctor said my stomach muscles were shot, that was just the excuse
I needed. No pain, no gain they say? For me it was, yes pain, and yes complain.
I simply stopped doing the situps, and voila! The pain went away.

I looked to our Jewish texts for some guidance on shmirat
haguf (guarding the body). Solomon wisely counseled, "He who guards his mouth
and tongue guards himself from trouble" (Proverbs 21:23). In other words,
one who refrains from gluttony and guards his tongue from speaking except
for what is necessary, stays out of trouble. Good advice.

"It is advisable for one to accustom himself to have
breakfast in the morning." This suggestion is from the Shulchan Aruch (Code
of Jewish Law) under "rules concerning physical well-being." Our sages must
have been right - every diet plan I've seen stresses the importance of eating
a good breakfast. The Shulchan Aruch also says that it is best to omit one
meal during the week, in order that the stomach may have a rest and its digestive
power be strengthened. Not the advice my nutritionist would give - something
to do with metabolism and storing energy - but it might be worth trying,
nonetheless.

Although statistics indicate eating disorders are prevalent
among Jewish women, there still is reason for optimism. The therapist who
was interviewed in that Lilith article said Judaism is a potential cure for
dysfunctional eating, what with our religion's "enormous potential for renewal."
I do believe in teshuva - that we can turn, change and do better. If I fall
down in my weight management from time to time, well, tomorrow is another
day.

So, no guilt over that Hershey bar my son magnanimously
offered up from the goodie bag he got today. Tomorrow, I'll be first in line
at the water cooler, I swear.

Lisa S. Lenkiewicz is managing editor of the Connecticut
Jewish Ledger in West Hartford.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Florence Rush, author of “The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children,” and the first feminist theorist to call children’s sexual abuse a political and patriarchal issue, died on Tues., Dec. 9, at her home at 61 Jane St., just short of her 91st birthday.

Florence was born in Manhattan and grew up in the Bronx before moving to Westchester in the early 1950s. She worked as a psychiatric social worker and community activist in New Rochelle, was married and raised three children. Rush joined a chapter of Older Women’s Liberation (OWL) in 1970 and subsequently moved to Greenwich Village.

She electrified a New York Radical Feminist Conference on Rape in April 1971, winning a standing ovation for her speech on what was then a startling new concept: Her theory, inspired by evidence she had collected in a facility for delinquent girls, identified familiar males — fathers, stepfathers, older brothers, uncles, neighbors and family friends — as the major sexual abusers of children, and traced the toleration of such abuse to the beginnings of history and cultural/religious customs. Family abuse had been ignored by the reigning Freudian psychologists of the day, who preferred to theorize about seductive children and girlish fantasies.

A wealth of books on child sexual abuse written by academics, journalists and celebrities followed Rush’s pioneering papers and lectures, while personal accounts were to become a staple on television talk shows. Rush’s “The Best Kept Secret” was published in 1980.

When Rush’s younger son, Matthew, was stricken with AIDS in the mid-1980s, she formed one of the first mothers’ support groups. A lecturer for Women Against Pornography in its early years, she later worked with the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW), on its Images of Children in the Media Committee. She also enjoyed a weekly poker game with neighbors and friends until failing health curtailed her activities.

She is survived by her son, Thomas, her daughter, Eleanor, and two grandchildren. She also leaves a network of friends who warmly recall her gracious hospitality in New York and on Fire Island, and who will never forget her brilliant, original mind, her singular contribution to feminist theory, her nurturing advice and aid, her impossible platform shoes, and her baked lasagna.

Friday, December 12, 2008

This following is very powerful video which should be shared with everyone you know. Over the last eight years The Awareness Center has been saying very similar things that is being said in this news report that aired on New York's PIX-TV News (www.wpix.com).

The problems in Brooklyn, NY are very similar to every other charedi community in the United States (Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Lakewood, Monsey, etc.), Canada, Australia, South Africa, Israel and beyond. The names of the powerful rabbis who protect alleged and convicted sex offenders may change, but the stories are practically identical.

Plead guilty to luring a 13-year-old girl to his Brooklyn home where he exposed himself to her and rubbed her breast.As of January 2, 2014, Arye Ickovits's name does NOT appear on the New York Sex Offender's registry. There are rumors circulating that Ickovits migrated to Israel. If you have more information about this case, please forward it to The Awareness Center.

There are several individuals by the name of Arye Ickovits. The individual discussed on this page was born around 1949.

The girl told her mother about her ordeal. But relatives waited four days before reporting the attack to cops, seeking rabbinical approval from neighborhood religious leaders about speaking to investigators, the spokesman said.

Members of the NYPD Brooklyn Child Abuse Squad were then shown a picture of Ickovits snapped by the girl's mother on a cell phone.

Just before last Thanksgiving, a 13-year-old Brooklyn girl told her parents she had been molested. They didn't go to police.

Her dad went straight to their rabbi.

The religious leader told him to go to another rabbi for guidance. The frantic couple spoke to two more rabbis before taking their advice: Talk to cops.

"I wanted to find the right way to go about this without traumatizing my daughter any further," the 32-year-old mom told the Daily News.

"I knew if I called the police, they would ask us to come down to the precinct. It would become public knowledge and my daughter would have to retell the story over and over again."

The family met privately with a detective and a prosecutor, and authorities charged a 59-year-old neighbor, Arye Ickovits, with sexually abusing the young teen after luring her into his bedroom.

As crimes go, the Dec. 3 arrest was so run-of-the mill, it barely made headlines. But until recently, it might not have happened at all.

Sexual abuse in New York's Hasidic community was almost never reported to police for fear of shaming the victim and exposing the insular world's less savory elements.

Advocates say that wall of silence is starting to crumble.

"They are coming to terms, standing up and saying, 'No more sweeping the abuse under the rug; no more denial. We need to deal with it, to face it, and to protect our children,'" said Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn).

Since October, at least four men living in Brooklyn's Hasidic enclaves have been charged with sexually abusing children, ranging in age from 7 to 15.

"In the past few months, communication between the community and law enforcement has improved, there is more sharing of information," said a law enforcement source who works with the Brooklyn Jewish community.

One of Orthodox Judaism's biggest political champions, Hikind is hosting a forum today where mental health experts and rabbinical leaders will openly address the problem.

The purpose is "to say to victims of sexual abuse, 'We are sorry we didn't see your pain,'" Hikind said.

Even with recent progress, investigators say it is tough to navigate the closed culture.

Just as the "stop snitching" mantra hides crimes in the hip-hop world, a similar code of silence keeps Hasidic families from talking to cops.

They fear being branded a moser - a violator of religious law that forbids Jews from informing on each other.

"If the family goes to the police, the family is worried that they can't send their kids to yeshivas, they worry that they can't marry off their daughters, they worry that they will be known as traitors," said one police source.

"The only way to stop it, is to stop people that offend, and that is to go through the criminal justice system," the source said.

During a recent interview with The News, Ickovits said he asked the teen to help him up the stairs of his home, where he did nothing wrong.

"She helped me. She came in, and I told her goodbye and she ran away," said Ickovits, who uses a walker. "She gave me a kiss and I gave her a kiss and she ran home."

Ickovits also said he handed the girl cash in exchange for helping him up the stairs.

Some in the community have said it was cruel to lock up Ickovits, a stroke survivor in frail health, but the victim's mom has ignored them.

"Everybody has a responsibility to come forward and speak up when they know that a child is being hurt," the mother said.

Some of the information on The Awareness Center's web pages may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.

We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml . If you wish to use copyrighted material from this update for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

_________________________________________________________________________________"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." –– Margaret Mead_________________________________________________________________________________

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

The Awareness Center has been notified that convicted sex offender, Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld is back in prison after violating the terms of his probation twice. More information about this will be posted on The Awareness Center's site on Cantor Stanley Rosenfeld within the next 24 hours.

Stanely Rosenfeld, is former cantor and spiritual leader at Temple Am David, Warwick, RI. He originally received a 10-year suspended sentence after pleading no contest to molesting a 12-year-old boy he was tutoring.

Name: Stanley Rosenfeld Date of Birth: 10/15/1933

Approximate Address:ReIncarcerated Status

City/Town:Cranston, RI, 02920

Convicted of:Second Degree Child Molestation

Community Supervision:Subject is under probation supervision until May 20, 2011

Thursday, December 04, 2008

Letter to the Editor
Secrecy Is No Solution To Sexual Abuse
by Vicki PolinForward - December 4, 2008

It saddens me that your November 28 editorial “Abuse and Trust” took a stand behind New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind instead of supporting what is needed to protect children from being sexually victimized.

It’s heart-breaking to watch how a few Jewish leaders in the Orthodox world keep manipulating community members into believing they do not have to report heinous crimes committed against our children to child protective services. Hikind is wrong to keep secret from law enforcement officials the names of both alleged sex offenders and those who have been victimized. Each day that goes by that he refuses to work with those who can really help means another child is being sexually victimized.

One has to realize that turning over the names of alleged sex offenders and also those who were allegedly sexually abused to child protection workers does not mean that the names will be made public. It only means there is a possibility that those who perpetrate crimes against our children may be prosecuted and that those who have been sexually victimized will be offered real help.

As Jews, we all have a moral responsibility to protect our youth. We all must consider ourselves mandated reporters — meaning if you suspect a child is at risk of harm you make a hotline report. Leave the investigating to those who have the specialized training and can conduct forensic investigations. Dov Hikind does not have this sort of training.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Shocking Sex Abuse AllegationsBy Mary MurphyWPIX (NY) - December 3, 2008Dark secrets are emerging from a local, religious community that's known for its modesty and old world values.PIX 11 has learned that a prominent, Orthodox Jewish leader will meet with the Brooklyn District Attorney to talk about allegations of sexual abuse in religious schools and homes.For more information go to:

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Awareness Center Leads the Way on Child Abuse Reform EffortsBy Ron CassieBaltimore Examiner - November 30, 2008Brooklyn Rabbi Nuchum Rosenberg, facing physical threats for speaking about child sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community, received the first "Rape Victim Advocate of the Year" award Wednesday from the Awareness Center in Pikesville.

Maryland Senator Jim Brochin and Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg

Vicki Polin, director of the Awareness Center, a Jewish coalition against sexual abuse, said Rosenberg's plight highlights problems Jewish victims have stepping forward in Baltimore as well."In Baltimore, rabbis are doing everything they can to discourage people from going to the police," said Polin, estimating she's met with at least 100 Baltimore-area Jewish survivors of child abuse in seven years."The kids are threatened with being kicked out of Jewish day schools. They are stonewalled in the community."The award presentation at the Pikesville Library served as one of a series of events recently organized by the Awareness Center and the Child Victims Voice of Maryland, working to abolish the state statute of limitations on civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse.Currently, victims have criminal, but not civil, recourse after their 25th birthday."Studies show only 10 percent of victims of childhood sexual abuse ever report it, most not until they are in their 40s, 50s and 60s," Polin said.Susan O'Brien, an Annapolis consultant and child sexual abuse victim, said the bill presented by state Sen. Dolores Kelley, D-Baltimore County, should have bipartisan support."This is a child protection measure. Do I want the right to sue the guy who abused me 25 years ago? Yes, but the guy who abused me in 1978 was 23 years old at the time, and he's still out there," she said.At a meeting Monday in Frederick, Ava Miegdzinski said a neighbor sexually abused her 5-year-old sister."The lawyers talked my parents out of filing a lawsuit because they said the other side's attorneys would tear my sister apart," Miegdzinski said."That makes us so mad today."

Subscribe to The Awareness Center's Newsletter

Translate

Survivors ARE Heroes!

The Awareness Center believes ALL survivors of sex crimes should be given yellow ribbons to wear proudly.

Survivors of sexual violence (as adults and/or as a child) are just as deserving of a yellow ribbon as the men and women of our armed forces, who have been held captive as hostages or prisoners of war.

Survivors of sexual violence have been forced to learn how to survive, being held captive not by foreigners, but mostly by their own family members, teachers, camp counselors, coaches babysitters, rabbis, cantors or other trusted authority figures.

For these reasons ALL survivors of sexual violence should be seen as heroes!